by Chris Ryan
‘Business good, lads?’ Joe asked.
Neither of them answered. The mixed-race kid made a hawking sound in the back of his throat, then spat a mouthful of green phlegm in Joe’s direction. It spattered against his trousers. Joe looked down at it. Then he looked at the kid.
‘Fancy coming a bit closer to do that?’ he said.
The kid snorted dismissively, his right hand still in his back pocket, but moving upwards slightly. His eyes darted towards his companion again.
He took two steps forward.
Then Joe made his move.
He was fully expecting the boy to pull the blade – a three-inch flick, small but no doubt sharp – so he was ready for it. As he stepped in the kid’s direction, he grabbed the wrist of his raised knife arm. With a brutal yank, he twisted the kid’s arm behind his back and forced it upwards until he heard bone splinter. The knife fell to the floor as the kid let out an agonizing scream and his friend scrambled towards the Range Rover. Joe blocked his way, shook his head and watched with satisfaction as both dealers – the injured boy clutching his arm behind his back, howling with pain and cursing – disappeared around the other side of the block in the same direction the junkie had headed. Spinning round, he opened the door of the car and removed the keys from the ignition. The ear-splitting music suddenly cut out. Joe slammed the door and clicked a button on the fob to lock the vehicle, before retrieving the knife from the ground and running over to the entrance of the block.
The lobby, which stank of piss and was littered with cigarette butts and beer cans, was deserted. The walls were plastered with graffiti, and on the left-hand side there was a broken lift, whose door kept trying to click closed, but to no avail. Joe positioned himself at the corner of the entrance. From here he could see the Range Rover twenty metres away, and he also had a clear view left and right of the road in front of the block.
Five minutes, he told himself. It wouldn’t take a second longer.
The kids on the corner had been just that. Kids. They were neither old enough nor, underneath the bluster, streetwise enough to be in charge of their little operation. Joe knew how it worked. Stick the foot soldiers on the corners and let them do the dirty work. If the police came calling, they would have the incriminating merchandise or the money. But these enterprises had a hierarchy. Joe would have bet almost anything that the corner boys’ boss man would already be on his way to defend his patch. And he wouldn’t be doing that with a three-inch flick knife. He’d be altogether better prepared.
The lift clicked. Music from the flats above drifted down. Joe waited.
Three minutes passed. He heard it before he saw it: a screeching of car wheels and the roar of an engine. The vehicle that pulled up in front of the Range Rover was a BMW X5, also black, windows also tinted. And the man who emerged seconds later had murder in his eyes.
Sallow-faced and thin, he had short, bleached-blond hair and wide cheekbones. There was something Eastern European about his features. He had none of the hip-hop bling that the kids wore – just a slightly oversized tracksuit that had the effect of emphasizing his skinny frame. Joe noticed at once, however, that his right hand was tucked inside the zip of his tracksuit top. He might be skinny, but then he didn’t have to rely on his strength to get what he wanted.
The man looked round, his eyes wary, clearly looking for whoever had dared to muscle in on his patch. Joe emerged from the shadows of the entrance and, the moment the newcomer observed him, made a clicking sound from the side of his mouth and winked. Then he stepped back into the shadows, his ambush prepared.
He could hear the man’s footsteps approaching. They were swift and confident, the footsteps of somebody moving without fear. And Joe knew he was moving without fear because of whatever he had tucked inside his tracksuit. He held the flick knife lightly in his right hand, ready to attack the second he saw him enter the bleak lobby.
No words were spoken. There was nothing to be gained from delaying. The man was carrying a small handgun lazily by his side. Whether he meant to fire it or threaten with it didn’t matter. He was armed, which meant he had to be put down. The instant Joe saw him come round the corner he attacked, swiping the knife across the width of his face. Joe felt the blade slice into the flesh at either corner of the man’s mouth, and as he whipped it sideways there was a slight, spongy resistance as it cut into his tongue. The explosion of blood was sudden and shocking. It was accompanied by the clattering sound of the weapon falling to the concrete floor. The man threw his hands up to his face, but not before he had screamed loudly, a single word in a language Joe didn’t recognize. That was the worst thing he could have done. As he opened his mouth, the cuts on each corner ripped open like a seam splitting up the side of his face. The flow of blood doubled, and his hands were not nearly equal to the task of staunching it. He staggered back, his face a scarlet mess of horror.
Joe bent down to pick up his gun. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 snubnose – nothing to write home about but serviceable enough. It would fire a round, and that was the important thing. He opened the cylinder release to check it was loaded, then tucked the weapon into the front of his jeans and made sure it was hidden under his lumberjack shirt. Then, leaving his victim, who had sunk to his knees and had at least realized that keeping his mouth shut was a good idea, he walked back out into the open air. Nobody would be shedding a tear that a piece of shit like that had been cut up, and although Joe had hardly taken him on out of good citizenship, he couldn’t help feeling grimly satisfied with what he’d just done. No doubt some other twat would grab this corner in the blink of an eye once word got out about what had happened, but that wasn’t a reason not to sort the cunts out. You had to keep cutting the heads off the hydra even when they kept on growing back, otherwise the Regiment would have given up on the Taliban months ago.
The Regiment. He’d hardly thought about them since he’d been back in the UK. Had they heard what had happened? Was it being discussed in the squadron hangars of Hereford or ops centres of Bagram, Bastion and Kandahar? Were his mates ready to believe the worst of him? It wouldn’t be the first time one of their number had gone bad.
The black corner boy had returned to his position, clearly expecting Joe to have been warned off by the moron with his .38. His eyes widened as he saw Joe emerge unscathed, and for the second time he scrambled out of sight. Joe dug the keys out of his pocket and opened the Range Rover. Should he risk taking it? He reckoned so. The people he was robbing were unlikely to go to the police and besides, they had nothing to link the vehicle to him. At the very worst it would be just another car crime to add to the stats.
As he turned the ignition, the music blared out again. He silenced it, then checked his rear and side mirrors. There was no sign of the man he’d just cut up. Over in the playground, the kids were still playing on the ropes, the mums still ignoring them with no inkling of what had just happened. He removed the handgun from his jeans and laid it carefully in the glove compartment before pulling away, his mind already working through the detailed logistics of his next move, and wondering if Eva had been successful.
‘What is it, love? Birthday present for the fella? Into all this stuff, is he? Tell you what, we get them all in here.’
The military clothing store to which Joe had directed her, halfway between Mile End station and Stepney Green and just off the Mile End Road, was empty apart from her and the young man in his mid-twenties who broke off reading the Sun behind the counter. The wall behind him was plastered with pictures of short-haired, improbably good-looking men in camouflage gear and with paint smeared artfully on their faces. Eva was no expert, but she was sure they were more familiar with the catwalk than the battlefield.
‘Two hundred and fifty, that one.’ The young man indicated the helmet she was holding. ‘Real McCoy, that. Kevlar, special forces issue. Here . . .’ He turned his newspaper back a couple of pages to reveal a full-page spread with the headline ‘Inside the top-secret unit that killed bin Laden’. It accompa
nied a picture of a soldier in full military gear, each item labelled. The man jabbed a finger at the soldier’s head. ‘Same thing,’ he said. ‘Best there is. Full head and neck protection, so unless he’s thinking of getting shot in the face . . .’
The man laughed at his own joke as Eva quietly put the helmet on the counter.
‘Do you sell body armour?’ she asked.
The shop assistant raised an eyebrow, then emerged from behind the counter and led her to an adjoining room, its walls lined with boots and berets. ‘Not much call for it,’ he said as he showed her a rail from which three chunky blue vests were hanging. ‘Just the occasional war reporter, you know, but it’s not the sort of thing you end up buying more than once. Anyway, that’s why they’re all blue. Identifies you as a journalist in a war zone. All good quality, though . . . Osprey Protective . . .’ As he spoke, Eva saw his eyes wandering towards the small carrier bag she was carrying, from the top of which an Ordnance Survey map was peeking, the word ‘Pembrokeshire’ just visible. ‘Course,’ said the man, ‘not much call for them in Welsh Wales, eh? Not unless your bloke’s thinking of SAS selection.’ He laughed again and, oblivious to Eva’s discomfort, rapped his knuckles against one of the vests. ‘Good thick ceramic plates . . . the dog’s bollocks really, ’scuse my French. Got the elbow and shoulder pads to go with it too . . .’
Eva selected the largest of the three vests. She was surprised how heavy it was, but then she was only used to wearing a stab vest. ‘Do you have side plates?’ she asked, just as Joe had told her.
The young man looked surprised at the question. He shook his head. ‘Like I say, not a lot of call . . .’
‘Binoculars?’
‘Sure.’
Eva paid with cash, withdrawn, at Joe’s instruction, from a hole in the wall while she was still in Dagenham. If things went to shit, it wouldn’t do her any good at all if her credit card records had shown her buying these items. But then things going to shit was something Eva didn’t really want to contemplate. Had DCI Jacobson reported her little deception of that morning? Her absence from work must have been noted. Were people out looking for her? She was acting as if in a dream, against her better judgement, half of her wanting to run and hide, the other half knowing that she was too far gone for that. She just had to trust that Joe knew what he was doing.
‘Hope it’s what he wanted,’ said the assistant as he handed over the goods.
‘Yeah,’ Eva murmured as she headed towards the exit. ‘Me too.’
The boot of the Range Rover was up. Joe was checking the gear Eva had acquired as he stashed it away carefully.
‘Joe,’ Eva said. He continued working and didn’t even look at her. ‘Please listen to me, I know what I’m talking about. If this vehicle is reported stolen, we . . . I mean the police . . . can track it. There’s number-plate recognition on every major road.’
‘Trust me,’ Joe said. ‘Nobody’s going to report it missing. Did you get the optics?’
‘The what?’
‘Night-vision goggles.’
Eva shook her head. ‘I drained my account, Joe. That was all I could—’
‘Forget it. You got the important stuff.’ He straightened up and looked round.
It was 6 p.m. The light was failing. Joe and Eva had parked at the crossroads of two residential roads in Wandsworth. A man wearing a suit and a woollen overcoat walked past, clearly intent on getting home. Two schoolkids walking their dog went by in the other direction. Joe slammed the rear door of the Range Rover shut and looked towards the crossroads. ‘He lives alone? No girlfriend?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘Have you ever been in the flat?’
‘Once,’ Eva replied. Her skin flushed a little. ‘We didn’t . . .’
‘There was no way of getting in through the back?’
Eva gave a helpless little shrug. ‘It was dark, Joe. But no, I don’t think so.’
‘And he’s definitely gone away?’
Eva nodded. ‘He told me this morning. Spain, I think. Flew at midday. But I don’t understand—’
‘You’re sure he has a bike?’
‘Positive, but—’
‘Wait here.’
Eva nodded, but as Joe stepped away from the car, she called after him. ‘Frank’s a nice guy. A friend of mine. Go easy on his place, OK?’
Joe found the motorcycle he was looking for easily enough, parked in the paved front area of number 63 and covered with a grey tarpaulin. Next to it, upturned on its side, was a bike trailer. Other than that, the front yard was empty, save for an old Pot Noodle carton that had blown in. A set of raised steps to his left led up to the ground- and first-floor flats, but the basement flat had a separate iron staircase. Once Joe had descended this, he was out of sight of the road in a gloomy, poky little entrance area. There was no light from the front window of the basement, and the curtains were shut. He knocked on the front door. It rattled slightly in its frame. Ill-fitting, Joe noted. Easier to barge down. After looking up to check he wasn’t being overlooked, he took a step back, then rammed his shoulder against the door. He felt a little give. Ramming it for a second time, he heard the crack of a mortise lock splintering out of its cavity. A third barge and he was in.
He didn’t enter straight away, but walked casually up the stairs to check nobody had been alerted by the noise. A woman walked past, white earphones plugged in, and didn’t even seem to notice him.
The flat was tiny. There was a small kitchenette in one corner and crockery was upturned on the draining board. Clothes littered the floor. Eva’s colleague Frank – was that what she’d said he was called? – was a messy bloke. At first Joe thought that might make it more difficult to locate his bike keys, but then he saw a leather jacket slung over the side of an armchair. He rummaged in the pockets and found a Yamaha key ring with two keys attached.
He stepped into the bedroom. It was even untidier. Eva had said that this bloke was about the same size as him, so Joe quickly scouted through clothes strewn over the floor and double bed. He selected a hooded top and, after poking around in a half-open drawer, a navy-blue snood. He hadn’t been in the flat for more than ninety seconds before he was hurrying back up the steps, clutching the keys and the clothes.
Eva was sitting in the passenger seat of the Range Rover, chewing anxiously on her fingernails. ‘Was he there?’ she asked as Joe climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine.
He shook his head. ‘I broke in. What is he, a boyfriend?’
‘I told you, he’s just a friend.’ Eva said quickly.
They were pulling up outside the flat where the bike was parked when she spoke again. ‘I still don’t understand why we need Frank’s bike. Can’t we just use this thing?’ She hit the dashboard of the Range Rover, frustration suddenly bursting out of her. She bit her lip and looked out of the passenger window. ‘Can’t you just let me call my colleagues? If they think Conor’s been abducted, they’ll be all over the place like a rash.’
‘No!’ Joe snapped, and instantly regretted it. Eva didn’t have to be here, he reminded himself. She was risking as much as he was. Maybe more. But time was running out. He could explain once they were on the road. He jumped out of the Range Rover, ran up to the front of the house, pulled the bike trailer to the back of the stolen vehicle and attached it to the rear. After pulling off the grey tarp, he wheeled the bike onto the trailer. Once he had secured it, he got back in the Range Rover and eased out into the road, aware of the troubled stare Eva was giving him.
‘Listen,’ he said as he glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘I don’t know who this Ashe guy is working for. Maybe it’s Al-Qaeda, maybe the Americans. But we do know this: he doesn’t care who he kills to get at me.’ He paused. ‘You didn’t see Caitlin’s body, Eva. You didn’t see the look in her eyes . . .’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it, and he found himself breathing deeply just to calm his nerves. ‘He will kill Conor if I don’t stop him,’ he continued after thirty seconds. ‘I
f we call the police, they’ll go in like a bull at a fucking gate and that’s what’ll happen.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I won’t risk it.’ He breathed deeply to calm down. ‘We have to think like him,’ he said. ‘Why has he chosen that precise location for the RV? I checked the satellite imagery when we were online. It’s a remote beach with a high cliff behind it. He could hide anywhere; I’ll be in plain sight. That’s good for him and bad for us. But wherever he is now – right now – he has to transport Conor to the RV. That means moving him out into the open.’ Joe felt his jaw clenching. ‘I saw Conor’s face on the video, Eva. It’s bruised and cut. He was crying. Transporting a child in that state is dangerous. Our man won’t want to move him far, so I think he’s already close to the RV point, somewhere nobody else is likely to see them. The video I saw was taken in a house that faced west out to sea. The mapping I checked online showed a solitary house about a kilometre inland from the RV. So far as I can tell, there are no other dwellings for four klicks in any direction.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Eva asked in a small voice.
‘That if he wants to lure me to that beach, he’s holding Conor in that house. I’d bet anything on it. And I need to get there before they leave for the RV.’ He glanced at the Range Rover’s clock: 1820 hours. ‘I think it will take us five to six hours to get to the coast,’ he said. ‘We’ll be approaching at midnight. There’s only one road leading to the house, and it slopes down towards it in full view. If I was him, I’d be watching that road. That’s why we need the bike. The map shows a bridleway that circles the house and approaches it from behind. It’s a very long way round from where we can safely park this thing without being seen from the house – four or five miles – but the bike will cover it quickly. I can take it off road and approach from a direction he won’t be expecting, then make the final approach by foot. That way I’ll catch up with him before he has time to set up an ambush.’